In addition to debunking key parts of CNN’s reporting, Davis also inadvertently revealed how CNN duped its readers into believing Davis wasn’t a source for the story.

While Davis served as an anonymous source, CNN also allowed him to decline a comment on the record. This leads readers to believe that the only communication CNN had with Davis was for him to refuse to comment on the story — even though he was one of the sources feeding CNN the story in the first place.

Politico reporter Marc Caputo explained the duplicitous nature of such an arrangement.

Lanny Davis said he was a source who lied to CNN. That’s on him.

But CNN in the story in question wrote “one of Cohen’s attorneys, Lanny Davis, declined to comment.”

That means CNN might have misled readers about talking to Davis. Thats a bigger problem than a source-burn https://t.co/l7BXtzHU6m

There are possible (though perhaps flimsy) explanations about what happened. Davis obviously has an honesty problem. But CNN now needs to explain how it did NOT mislead its audience in suggesting Davis didn’t speak to them when, in fact, he apparently did.

“The original CNN story — broadcast during Chris Cuomo’s prime-time show and written by Jim Sciutto, Marshall Cohen, and Watergate reporting legend Carl Bernstein — said that Davis had “declined to comment.’”

The Washington Post made the same tricky move in their “confirmation” of CNN’s July 27 report, telling readers that Davis “declined comment” despite later admitting that Davis had confirmed the story on background.

In their July 27 story “confirming” the CNN story, WaPo said that Davis declined comment. But in their clean-up piece out tonight, WaPo acknowledges that Davis was the anonymous source cited as a “person familiar with Cohen’s thinking.” pic.twitter.com/dGw2fXAy2N